Ear Playing Project (EPP)

The research team

Professor Lucy Green (Project Leader)

Professor Lucy Green is the Principal Investigator for this research project. Her main research interests are in the sociology and philosophy of music, with special relation to education, social reproduction, musical meaning, gender, identity, ideology, youth, the popular/classical split, popular music, informal learning and innovative pedagogy. She led the informal learning 'pathfinder' in the UK national Musical Futures project. This involved developing and evaluating the adaptation of popular musicians' informal learning practices for the classroom environment. Her current research is taking this work forward into instrumental pedagogy.

Lucy is the author of four books and numerous shorter pieces on music education. She has given keynote lectures and seminars at conferences and universities in Europe, Asia and the Americas, and sits on the editorial or advisory boards of a number of journals including Music Education Research, Radical Musicology, Popular Music, the British Journal of Music Education, the Journal of Music, Technology and Education, Research Studies in Music Education, and others. At the Institute of Education, she has contributed to all taught programmes in music, including: the secondary Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE); the primary PGCE; and the MA in Music Education. She has a number of research students from many different countries.

Lucy's first degree was a BEd at Homerton College, Cambridge. From there, she did an MA in Music (analytic methodology, sociology and philosophy of music) at Sussex University, followed by a DPhil in Music and Education also at Sussex. During that time, she had a private piano teaching practice. After her doctorate, she became Director of Music at a Sixth Form College, then Assistant Music Teacher in a large comprehensive school in the north of England, then Head of Music at an inner London comprehensive, before starting at the Institute as a Lecturer in Music Education in 1990. She is a singer and pianist, and practises both those arts when time allows.

Dr. Maria Varvarigou (Research Officer)

Dr. Maria Varvarigou has been performing as a solo singer, oboist and chorister for many years. She has participated in several recordings of Greek traditional songs and she has developed great interest in performance practices of traditional musics. She has been Research Officer at the Institute of Education on a range of projects related to instrumental music, practising, choral singing, CPD for KS1 teachers, an evaluation of a major project by the London Symphony Orchestra, music provision in the Greater London Authority, choral education and the effects of active engagement of music on well-being and health in older people. Her interests are performance practice (singing), traditional and world music, choral conducting education, music education and older learners, and teacher training. She has extensive experience of using quantitative and qualitative research methods, data analysis and report writing. Maria completed her PhD in 2009 as scholar of the A.S. Onassis Foundation. In January 2010, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

Dr. David Baker (Research Officer)

Dr. David Baker read for his undergraduate degree at University College, Cardiff and, subsequently, completed Master of Music and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at Reading University. David is a trumpeter and Associate of the Royal College of Music, London. He is a member of the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain. David's academic pursuits have embraced qualitative research, research into musicians' life histories and music service provision. He has published articles in these spheres in the British Journal of Music Education and the International Journal of Music Education. In 2007, David collaborated with John Miller, Director of Wind and Percussion, Royal Northern College of Music, on an investigation into conservatoire students' pedagogical training. This work was published in the British Journal of Music Education. After participating as External Academic Assessor for a University of Plymouth approval panel for a new foundation degree in music at Exeter College, he was appointed External Examiner in 2010. Recently, though, David has published book reviews in the British Journal of Music Education, Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, Philosophy of Music Education Review and Psychology of Music.

Alongside his role at the University of London, David is also Course Tutor for the Music Teaching in Professional Practice (Mtpp) initiative at the Institute of Education, Reading University. The Mtpp programme is a collaborative venture with the Incorporated Society of Musicians; it provides training for in-service music teachers. David supervises Master of Arts dissertations and co-supervises a doctoral candidate at Reading.

David joins the present research from a background as an instrumental teacher. He taught brass instruments in a variety of primary and secondary settings for a Local Education Authority (LEA) music service for over 10 years. Some of his former students continued to study at leading music conservatoires and university departments. In 1999, Peters Edition published Fast Track Trumpet Training, two volumes of his educational music for trumpet.